Tightrope
by Brandywine421
Summary: Darien faces a tough choice as he reaches quicksilver madness and can't get in touch with anyone to help.


Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, they belong to the SciFi Channel  
  
  
  
  
"There is a thin line between what is good and what is evil  
And I will tiptoe down that line  
But, I will feel unstable,  
My life is a circus   
And I am tripping down that tightrope  
There is nothing to save me now  
So, I will not look down..."  
  
-Papa Roach   
  
  
Darien Fawkes winces as the needle pierces his flesh.   
"You should be good for a while now," The Keeper smiles, sympathetically. "You have any plans for the weekend?"  
"I've got a case of beer and the complete Bruce Willis video collection," Fawkes smiles. He absently rubs the circular snake tattoo on his wrist, as it turns green.  
"Wow, big plans." She turns toward her desk and asks over her shoulder, "How're you doing, Darien? Bobby says you've been a little down."  
"I'm just tired," Darien replies with a shrug.  
"Sleeping okay?" She asks.  
"Are we done, Keep?" Darien asks in reply, swinging his long legs over the chair and onto the floor.  
She sighs. "Sure. Have a good weekend."  
Darien walks to the door and pauses. He turns to her. "Claire..."  
She glances up. "Yes?"  
He looks at her and a sad expression passes briefly across his face. "Never mind. See you Monday." Darien wants to tell her about the nightmares that wake him up in cold sweats and about the piercing pains he gets during his dreams of drowning in quicksilver, but he doesn't. It's Friday. He walks to his car.  
"Partner! Not going to say goodbye?" Bobby Hobbes calls from the doorway.  
"I thought you were already gone. Everything go smoothly with the 'Fish'?"   
Bobby nods. "Sure, he loves us. We're his favorite agents."  
"We're his only agents," Darien replies.  
"You heading home?" Bobby questions.  
"Yep. I got some videos, I'm just going to veg out and take it easy," Fawkes answers, running his hand through his disheveled hair.  
"Well, get some sleep, my friend. You look beat. I'll see you on Monday."   
Darien climbs into his rickety car and starts home. His apartment used to be a place for him to relax and rest his weary mind, but lately, his depression and nightmares have invaded every part of his being. The only place he can find peace is at his brother's grave but after the recent mRNA failure where he let his brother's memory take over his body in an attempt to get the Quicksilver gland out of his head, even the grave drains his body of peace.  
Fawkes pulls into a liquor store and impulsively buys a bottle of Jack Daniels. He carries it upstairs to his apartment and stores it in the freezer. Back when he was a thief, he always had a bottle nearby to share his victories and defeats.   
He pops a video into his VCR, 'Die Hard', the original John MacClaine thriller and settles down with his alcohol.  
Around midnight, reasonably intoxicated, he glances at his wrist. His meter shows half green and half red blocks. He blinks and looks again. He hasn't used any quicksilver so it should be fully green. He makes a mental note to call the Keeper in the morning.   
He closes his eyes and dozes until a sharp pain in his neck wakes him. He recognizes the pain as the precursor to quicksilver madness. It's 3 a.m. and he had been dreaming of holding his brother's lifeless body again. His wrist shows only two green blocks left. He grabs his phone and calls Claire.  
An answering machine picks up.  
"Claire, it's Darien. It's around 3," He says, pausing as he recognizes the slur in his voice. "3 a.m. and my tattoo says I've only got two green blocks left but I haven't used any quicksilver since my last shot. Can you come by when you get this message?" He hangs up as another headache attacks his body.  
A sliver of quicksilver trickles down his arm, involuntarily. Darien dials Bobby Hobbes and gets another machine.  
"Bobby, it's Fawkes. Can you come by my place when you get this? Something's wrong and I don't know what." He hangs up and glances around his apartment, scared. He doesn't know what to do. He is in control at the moment but he knows that it is only a matter of time before the madness hits full force. He doesn't have anyone else to call.   
Darien holds his head as he tries to think of the answer. He staggers into his kitchen as the pain assaults him. He opens a drawer and pulls out a pair of handcuffs and a thick chain. He hates being chained but he doesn't trust himself to be free when the insanity takes over. He goes into his bathroom and attaches the chain to a pipe above the shower. When he hooks it to the handcuffs, he has enough slack to move around the small room, but not enough to reach the doorway. He sighs as he clamps one cuff on his wrist. His tattoo only has one green slot left and his eyes are already tinged with the red of madness. He closes his eyes and cuffs his other hand.   
  
  
"I speak of madness  
My heart and soul  
I cry for people who ain't got control  
Let's take our sanity  
Let's take compassion  
And be responsible for every action-  
Hell no..."  
  
-Papa Roach  
  
  
Saturday at noon: Claire closes the door behind her and removes the leash from her dog, Pavlov. She pushes the button on her answering machine when she notices the flashing light.   
"Claire..." Darien starts when the tiny dog chomps down onto the power cord and pulls the machine to the floor with a crash.   
"Pavlov!" She dials Darien's number but gets no answer. Shrugging, she goes into her kitchen to make lunch. The dog begins to bark at the answering machine.   
Bobby Hobbes unlocks his apartment around 2 p.m. He is exhausted from bowling and lies down for a nap. He doesn't check his messages. Its Saturday, not even criminals work on Saturdays.  
Darien is sitting cross-legged on his bathroom floor. His silver eyes are closed as in meditation. He has been in level 5 Quicksilver madness longer than ever before. He doesn't see faces anymore, just blood and pain. He wants to hurt someone, everyone, he just wants to damage the world the way he is damaged. His wrists are raw and bleeding from his sporadic attempts to free himself. The warm blood against his cool skin irritates him, taunting his edgy mind. He has broken the mirror and glass litters the floor around him. He has glass shards embedded in his skin and is oozing blood.   
He has no concept of his own sanity anymore. The madness is surging through him like cold fire. Quicksilver rivulets trace his veins like snakes, mixing with his blood, cooling his white-hot mind.   
Darien isn't sleeping or meditating. His eyes are closed and he is calmly flipping a glass shard in his swollen, cuffed hands. The handcuffs taunt him when his eyes are open and he is surrounded by the demons. Arnaud, laughing and dangling the elusive counteragent in front of him; Kevin, in his lab coat, shaking his head in disgust at his criminal brother; Claire, holding a straitjacket, smiling her false smile, aching to lock him in the white room; The Official, flanked by Eberts, saying, "You belong to the Agency, Fawkes; his demons encircle him.  
With his eyes closed, he only hears the voices, he can't see his torturers.   
He doesn't know when he starts to shake. He is sitting in a puddle of blood. The glass shard he is holding has cut his hand to the bone. He doesn't feel pain, only a red rage. He starts to thrash around again, hurling the shard into the wall and moaning inhumanly. He pulls desperately against the chain, but it doesn't give. He is trapped like an animal. He considers cutting off his hands, but realizes that he couldn't inflict the kind of pain he needs with nubs. He settles down again, crouching in the corner, waiting for victims.   
Darien's phone rings, early Sunday morning. He stands, chained, just inside the doorway to the bathroom, staring at the phone across the room. He still thirsts to hurt the people who have made him an animal, but has resigned himself to his imprisonment here. With his newly found logic, he decides to punish the person who put him in chains.   
  
  
  
"You sure he said that? Something's wrong?" Claire asks, worried. She's in Bobby's van on Sunday night. "I had a message on Saturday morning, but I didn't get to hear it because of my dog, oh god."  
"I don't know when he called, I didn't check my messages. He's not answering his phone, though, and he always answers his phone. You gave him a shot on Friday, right?"  
The keeper nods. "It was the last of a batch, it would've went bad in a few more days."  
"You think it was already bad?" Hobbes asks, quietly.  
"God, I hope not. He could be anywhere by now if he went into quicksilver madness."  
Bobby parks the van beside Darien's car. "Unless he left on foot, he's in there," Bobby remarks.  
"Unless somebody took him," Claire replies, as they take the stairs two at a time.  
Bobby knocks, loudly, but there is no reply from inside. Bobby pulls a key out of his pocket and unlocks the door.  
The apartment is in its usual disarray. The t.v. is on a blue screen and an unfinished bottle of whiskey sets on top of it.   
"Darien?" Claire calls, tiptoeing around. She takes several steps toward the bathroom.   
"I wouldn't come in here if I were you," A calm voice says. A chill runs down her spine as she recognizes the tone of voice Darien only gets when he's insane. Bobby gets in front of her and peers into the bathroom.  
Darien is sitting on the edge of the tub, carving into his arm with a shard of glass. Blood is running down both his arms from the deep gashes.  
"God. Partner, what happened?" Bobby asks, standing just outside the door.  
Darien looks up, indifferent. "I'm not your partner anymore." Bobby recoils at the coldness of his silver eyes. Darien returns to slashing his arm.  
"I'll get the tranquilizer out of the van," Bobby says, visibly shaken. He leaves quickly.  
"Darien. Who chained you to the wall?" Claire asks, wincing from the blood.  
"I did. That's why I'm being punished." He looks up and smiles. "Do you need to be punished?"   
Claire cannot believe he is still conscious, considering the amount of blood on the floor and his pale skin. Bobby returns with the tranquilizer gun.   
Darien glances up, curious. "I don't think you should bother. You know how the Official gets about wasting tax dollars. Darien is gone. He's been in stage 5 too long. There's nothing left in here but hate." A tendril of quicksilver coils around his arm and up onto his head.   
"Look at his hair," Claire says. There's a streak of white hair at the edge of his hairline.   
Bobby shoots Darien in the chest. Darien looks at the dart. He pulls it out and studies it. Then, he falls limps into the floor.   
"Who chained him like this?" Bobby asks, as Claire injects Fawkes with counteragent.   
"He did it himself. He said he was punishing himself for it...I can't believe this has happened...Do you have a key for the handcuffs?" Claire is trying to contain her emotions as she feels for Darien's pulse.  
Bobby nods and frees the unconscious Fawkes. They carry him to his bed where Claire starts to bandage his many wounds while Bobby calls the Official.   
The Keeper gets some things and by the time the Official arrives, Darien is hooked up to a saline drip and a heart monitor. She is stitching his right arm.   
"How is he?"  
Claire sighs and rubs her temples. "His blood pressure is too low, his heart rate is too slow and he may never psychologically recover but, other than that, he's fine."  
The Official shakes his head. "This isn't anyone's fault but mine. There's no sense in this continuing to happen."  
"It's my fault. I should have checked the counteragent more thoroughly..." Claire touches Darien's arm, tenderly. "I can't even imagine what it took for him to chain himself like that."  
"It's everyone's fault and no one's. There's nothing we could have done but now we know." Bobby is emphatic. "Fawkes is going to pull through this and we'll make sure it never happens again. End of story." He walks away, upset.  
"He called us. Me and Bobby, both and we didn't get the message until too late. He had already been in Stage five for days," Claire explains.   
"Anything you need," The Official nods. "Do you want to move him to the lab?"  
She shakes her head. A stream of Quicksilver trickles across his face, running down his cheek like a tear and into his shirt. "I don't think we should move him." She holds one of his eyes open and shines a light in it. "Its not red anymore."  
Claire and Bobby camp out in Darien's apartment for the next three days. Both are asleep when Darien finally wakes up.   
He is in pain, but a different kind of pain than when he fell asleep. He sits up, slowly and looks at his heavily bandaged arms. A tiny space is unbandaged where the i.v. is in his vein. A wave of vertigo and nausea overcomes him. He gingerly pulls the i.v. from his arm and stands up, holding onto the wall for support. He makes it to the bathroom, sees the chain and remembers. The memory brings him to his knees and he vomits in the toilet. He dry heaves after the first attempt, his empty stomach contracting painfully. Finally, he stops and falls back into a sitting position.  
He remembers the rage and hate and fear. He remembers cutting his arms methodically for hours, waiting for someone to come. He had no control. His stomach demands emptying.  
Claire wakes up to the sound of his retching. "Darien! You shouldn't be out of bed!"  
Darien shakes his head and waves her away. He wants to be alone right now. He feels to vulnerable to be hovered over by her. Bobby appears by her side.   
"Fawkes! You okay?"   
Darien is humiliated. His friends found him chained and suicidal in his own apartment. He is being babysat. He stands up and unsteadily returns to bed under their watchful eyes. He lies facedown and puts a pillow over his swirling head.   
  
  
"There's no beginning,  
There is no end,  
There is only change.  
Progression backwards,  
Is this where we are headed?  
Take back your soul,  
Forget your emptiness..."  
  
-Papa Roach  
  
  
Darien slowly recovers, his arms heal, but he doesn't speak. He doesn't trust what his mind will relay to his mouth. His mind rages with flashbacks and false memories. Bobby and Claire hover over him, constantly.   
Several days later, Fawkes looks up from his bed.  
"What do I have to say to get a little privacy?"  
Claire drops her cup of tea.  
"Darien, you..." Claire starts.  
"Thank you for worrying, I appreciate it, but I need some time away from your microscope." Darien climbs out of bed and goes into the kitchen. He gets a broom and a towel and starts cleaning up the tea.  
Bobby leaves, upset. Claire lingers.  
"Darien," she starts.  
He stops mopping the liquid. He puts his head in his hands. "Claire, I need some time alone with my sanity. Please."   
Claire runs downstairs to catch Hobbes.   
"At least he's talking," Hobbes says, leaning against her SUV.  
"We need to fill the Official in, anyway," Claire replies. Neither says how worried they are.   
Darien sits on his bed, trying to put his thoughts in order. He did what was right; he restrained himself for everyone's safety. It doesn't mean he's an animal, does it? He doesn't trust himself, or yet, he doesn't trust the version of himself with the gland. The gland is a part of him, now. He isn't sure he remembers who the pre-gland Darien was.   
He holds his head as he remembers the taunting voices of the weekend. He shakes the memory away, its not real, the terror and the fear, that's real, but his friends, they're pure.  
Slowly, he starts to pull the bandages off his arms. The scabs are itching and the stitches are ugly against his skin. If this is what he does to himself, what would he do to someone else?  
It was an accident, he knows that, but he hates the way he feels, helpless, his fate in other people's hands. Darien has no control over his life or his sanity.  
He sits motionless for hours, wrestling with his emotions, trying to put his conflicting feelings into some kind of order. Sometime after nightfall, his phone rings.  
"Darien," He answers.  
"Fawkes. You okay?" Hobbes asks, relieved at his friend's voice.  
"Yep. You?"  
"Me and the Keep, well, we're glad you're talking again."  
"You sure?" Fawkes asks.  
Hobbes is silent.  
"I was joking."  
"Oh," Hobbes replies, nervously.  
Darien hears voices in the background.  
"You still at the agency, Hobbes?"  
"I've gotten a little behind on my paperwork."  
Darien sighs. "When does the Official need me back at work, Bobby? He can't have his invisible man take this many sick days in a row, can he?"  
"Um, whenever you're ready, partner," Bobby replies, a little confused about Darien's mood.  
"Look, I'm sorry I'm so out of it, I just need a little space. Put some things in perspective." Darien feels guilty for causing his friend's worry.  
"It's okay, Fawkes. Whatever you need. The Keep wants to talk to you. I'll stop by tomorrow."  
"Hobbes, don't bother. I'll come into the Agency. I need to talk to the 'Fish' anyway. We'll get a taco or something," Darien decides aloud.   
"You sure?"  
"Always when it comes to tacos," Darien jokes. Bobby doesn't laugh.  
Darien hears the breathing change as Claire takes the phone.  
"Darien?"  
"10-4. What's up?"   
Claire is silent.  
Darien sighs and massages his forehead to try and alleviate the growing ache. He had forgotten how tiring conversation could be. "Hey Keep. Why don't you stop by later with a six-pack and we'll try this 'talking it out' thing you keep talking about?"  
"Are you sure?" She asks, relief echoing in her voice.  
"No. Everything I say to you is going to get written down in some file for all the freaking bureaucrats and scientists to analyze. You'll finally see how weak and close to the edge I really am. No, Claire, I'm not sure but I'm tired of feeling the way I do and I trust your judgment. If you think talking to you will help, then I'll try it. I'll try just about anything right now," Darien replies.  
"Darien..." Claire starts, stunned by his rant.  
"Just stop by and we'll try it. I'd rather talk to you than Bobby. He's worried enough and heavily medicated. You aren't heavily medicated are you?"  
Claire doesn't answer.  
"It was a joke."  
"Oh."  
"Bye, Claire."  
He hangs up. He is frustrated and exhausted. It seems like everything is a trial for him these days. He worries every time he comes home that some man in black is going to be waiting with a gun to take him somewhere for experiments. He doesn't trust anyone he meets because they probably only want to take him to some lab and slice open his head. Hobbes is constantly babysitting him, he seems to truly care, but with the Agency, one never knows.   
Claire is different. She acts sympathetic and caring, but deep down, Darien know she is simply taking care of the carrying case of the gland. She has to keep him in perfect health in order to keep the gland in perfect health. The Official controls everything, and Fawkes thinks that it isn't impossible that he orders the correct display of emotions in order to keep the gland's host pacified.  
Darien shakes off his emotions. He goes to his fridge and gets a beer then pops into the VCR, 'The Last Boy Scout' with Bruce Willis. His movies are desperately overdue, but he hasn't been out to return them. He sits down on his couch and tries to lose himself in the movie.   
He hears the knock on his door in a dream. He is crouched in a bright hallway, holding a dying Kevin when the knock distracts him. He jerks awake and goes to the door. He opens it, pale and sweating.  
"Darien! Are you all right? You look..." Claire is instantly worried.   
"Bad dream, that's all. I'm fine. Come in." Darien leads her over to his couch.   
"You seem to be doing better. You're talking."  
"I still need a little recharge time, but I'm trying. I wasn't' those first few days. Things could be worse, I don't know how," he smirks, "But I sure as hell don't want to test it."  
"You know, that...that monster's not you, Darien."  
Darien nods. "I know, but it's a part of me. When it takes over, I'm kind of pushed back, helpless...I saw myself pick up a piece of glass and slice my arm...I had no control. It was like I was a puppet to this insane monster. I felt the pain, but everything's so sensitive at that point, it didn't feel like pain." He looks away. "I didn't think I was going to make it back. If I had hurt you or Hobbes..."  
"You didn't," Claire says, leaning forward. "You were brave and strong to do what you did. You protected us and everyone else by putting yourself last...I don't know how you did it."  
Darien smiles sadly. "At least I have a new nightmare. It gets kind of boring with the same one every night. Now I have a cycle of dreams."  
"What kind of dreams, Darien?" Claire asks, concerned.  
He shrugs. He gets up and grabs another beer from the fridge. "You know, the usual. Drowning in quicksilver. Kevin bleeding to death. The new one has me chained in a straitjacket dangling over a spider." Darien smiles slightly. "What do you do about that? I hate being chained but I really hate spiders. I can't win."  
Claire winces at her own question. "Why do you think you're having these dreams?  
Darien sits down. "Because my fear is leaking into my sleep. Its inescapable."  
Claire reaches out and touches his crippled hand. "Darien, what was it like for you this weekend?"  
"It was exactly how you imagine it. Unimaginable." He takes a long swallow of his beer. "It was worse than being in the white room because I was in my own place. You always think that your own place will be a safe haven for you, but not then. I was trapped in my own apartment, just like I was trapped in my own mind."  
Darien smiles at Claire's solemn expression. "I'm utterly depressing, aren't I? I'm sorry."  
"Why are you sorry?" Claire asks, confused.   
"I appreciate what you and Bobby have been doing for me. You guys are good friends."  
Claire nods. "Why didn't you talk for those few days?"  
He shrugs. "I didn't have anything to say. My head was all messed up and I didn't know how to get my thoughts to come out right. I needed to recharge."  
"So you think you're recharged? Bobby says you're coming into the Agency tomorrow," Claire asks, concerned.  
"I'm not going to work tomorrow, hopefully, though. But I need to talk to the Official, I guess. Let him know I'm not completely psychotic before he brings my gland's replacement in, you know? Besides, I'm sure you have lots of things in the lab that you need to poke me with. It will also make Bobby feel better, and I get to get out of this apartment." He glances at his arms. "I need to get some sun to try and hide these god awful scars, too, right?"  
"Once they heal, we can try some things to fix those." She smiles for the first time since she arrived. "Wouldn't want to damage your perfect skin, would we?"  
He puts his hand to his face, dramatically. "It's not perfect, I'm out of my favorite moisturizer!"  
Claire feels secure enough to leave him for the night when she sees him laugh as Bruce Willis dances a jig at the end of his movie. She calls Bobby from her car.  
"You think he's okay?"  
Claire sighs. "He's better. He's clawing his way out of his depression, but I don't know when he'll be full speed again."  
Surprisingly, Darien has fewer nightmares that night. He sleeps a full four hours before he is jolted awake, gasping for breath. He rolls over and tries to return to sleep, but he cannot. He gets up and walks to his bathroom.   
He has been using his bathroom as quickly as possible since his incarceration in it. Bobby or Claire cleaned it before he came to, so there is no sign of his nightmare except for the lack of a mirror.   
He hesitates outside the doorway. Finally, he takes a deep breath and steps inside.   
  
Fin  



End file.
